U.C. Berkeley and the Broad Institute are fighting to control the patents on the revolutionary gene-editing technology. But there's a lot more at stake than just who gets the credit and licensing fees.

Most companies protect their core technologies with a set of patents, in case something goes wrong with one or more of them.
Flickr/Oak Ridge National LaboratoryOctober 11, 2013

Whether sequences of genetic material can be patented has been a matter of heated debate for the past decade or more. In many countries, patents have been granted for isolated gene sequences, methods of…

Angelina Jolie has a double mastectomy after discovering she carried a mutation of the BRAC1 gene.
Dominic Lipinski/PA WireJune 14, 2013

Millions of women in the US will have access to affordable genetic screening for cancer after the US Supreme Court ruled that a commercial company cannot patent human genes. The screening tests for mutations…

What the court decides in this case could potentially change the genetic research landscape for ever.
David/FlickrFebruary 27, 2012

IDEAS AND OWNERSHIP: The concept of protecting ideas and innovation by legal means dates back to antiquity. But in the age of the internet and multinational business models, many of the existing laws are…